The Locus of the millennial reign of Christ and the saints in Rev 20:1-10

Abstract

Aside from the controversial issue on the temporal aspect of the millennium, the locus of the milennial reign of Christ and His saints in Rev 20:1-10 is an issue on which biblical scholars have not reached a consensus. The majority of them argue for an earthly locus of the millennial reign of Christ and His saints, but there is a minority that still adhere to a heavenly locus of this reign. This research analyzes Rev 20:1-10 and the immediate and wider contexts in order to determine whether the millennial reign of Christ and His saints will take place on earth or in heaven. This also answers the temporal aspect of the millennium. This study analyzes Rev 20, beginning with structural analysis of chaps. 19-22, which shows a chronological proqression between chaps. 19 and 20. This indicates that the millennium follows the Parousia. A lexical-grammatical, literary and contextual analysis of Rev 20 is presented. Rev 20:1-10, especially the unit vv. 4-6, does not speak explicitly about the locus of the millennial reign of Christ and His saints. The analysis of the literary pattern shows that 20:1-10 has an earth-heaven-earth pattern. This suggests that 20:4-6 is located in heaven. An anarysis of the occurrences of thronous (thrones) in Revelation indicates a heavenly locus for this reign. A survey of the passages parallel to 20:4-6 shows a heavenly reign. This is supported by other NT passages. This research surveys the broader context in the biblical and extrabiblical literature. It considers the verbal, thematic, and structural parallels of Rev 19-22, in some OT, NT, and extrabiblical passages. There are parallels to some OT passages in Rev 19-22, but there are also significant differences between them. The conclusion of thls study is that the locus of the millennial reign of Christ and His saints is in heaven after the Parousia.